In Israel, a state-funded call centre selling illegal West Bank homes

Set up by Amana, the settlement branch of the Yesha (settlement) Council, the office has been active for four years. During this period, it sold illegal Palestinian land to hundreds of unaware foreign customers. Amana is supported by the World Zionist Organisation, an agency funded by the state.

Tel Aviv (AsiaNews/Agencies)
- The World Zionist Organisation's settlement department, which is financed
through state budgets, has been selling illegal homes in the West Bank through
a call centre paid with public money.

According to an
investigation by Israeli daily Haaretz,
the organisation has been operating undisturbed for four years, selling hundreds
of homes and plots of land in illegal settlements, all without the knowledge of
the authorities.

To set up the
call centre, the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) from 2009 to 2013 moved more
than US$ 285,000 to Amana, the settlement movement associated with the Yesha
Council, an umbrella organisation of municipal councils of Jewish settlements
in the West Bank. The
transfer was made without any audit on the use of public funds.

The Haaretz investigation found that the
call centre operates in English, aimed primarily at Jews living abroad. Its
operators offer customers very detailed information, including plans and
pictures, about the houses on sale, obscuring any distinction between legal and
illegal construction on Palestinian land.

The Israeli
newspaper's own journalists have tested the call centre, pretending to be
interested in a house. The
call centre operator proposed a house in the settlement of Eli, which was built
without permits.

The WZO has been
accused of making illegal profits by using state funding, which are distributed
every year without any controls. In fact, the organisation's budget more than
doubled in 2012, jumping from US$ 17 million to US$ 77 million.

A 2005 report commissioned
by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and authored by attorney Talia Sasson into illegal
outposts found many flaws in the department's operations. Among other things,
Sasson discovered that the department had financed illegal construction for
many years in various locations.

The net result
has been that more Israeli-funded settlements have made ​​it impossible for the
West Bank to retain its territorial unity, which is the main obstacle to peace
negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

An estimated 500,000
Israeli settlers now live on Palestinian territory. Their
number has been rising under Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, which
has pushed for more settlements in the occupied areas rather than a freeze on
granting construction permits.